To Everything There Is A Season
by stitchcat
Summary: When the old men die, who passes on their wisdom? A wolf tale.


**To Everything There Is A Season**

"…there was this young girl, see. She went and fell in love with this boy who just moved to town. He wasn't right, didn't belong here. Strange fella. She told her daddy she thought the boy wasn't normal, she said. He was actin' wrong around her. Her daddy called him 'round, to set him straight. You want to know what happened next? That boy, he went on over to her house and killed 'em all. Leastways we think he did. Burned the place to the ground and took off. Never did find him. Good-looking boy like that, just goes to show. You should never judge a book by its cover."

Pete cleared his throat and glanced over to check how the pump was doing. He tried to think of something to say about the story, but couldn't find anything appropriate. Instead he offered a nod in sympathy for the poor girl and her family.

The 'ting ting ting' of the bell came as a relief; he disconnected the hose before taking his sweat-stained hat and knocking the dust off on his leg. Pete turned to the speaker in time to see him spit a gob of tobacco into a dented Ben Moore paint can. "Well, sir, thank you for the story. It sure has given me something to think about on the road. Good day to you." Those were the most words he'd spoken to anyone in weeks, but he valued good manners in himself and in others. The old man tipped his hat and pursed his lips in farewell before stomping back into the beat-up country store.

Pete shook his head and climbed back into the Chevy, wondering why he'd been the beneficiary of the tale, before dismissing it as unimportant. Spending any more time thinking about an isolated store in Hicksville, Nowhere just seemed like a plain old waste of time.

The weeks of driving had settled into a dull routine for Pete. He would pull up in front of whichever bar or pool hall came first on his way into town and ask if anyone needed a hired hand. He swept floors, tended bars, escorted strippers to their cars in darkened parking lots, and mended fences on open ranges. He would stay from a week to a month, depending on the job, then drift on to the next place that took his fancy, or where he ran out of gas.

The life of a nomad wasn't one he'd chosen, exactly, but it suited him for now. He was young, fit, not unattractive and had the manners his mother had beaten into him. He was well-liked by his casual acquaintances and more than took care of himself in a fight. All-in-all he raised no red flags, and when he was thought of at all, it was with respect.

Hicksville, Nowhere was six weeks and a thousand miles behind him, long-forgotten, when he found himself heading north into the mountains of Idaho. The great fir trees reminded him of home, and the crispness in the air let him know that Fall was on the way. It seemed like a good place to stop for a while, maybe pick up some work and get used to the climate after all that time in the dust and heat before heading back home for good. Home. Strange to think of home after all he'd been through, how much he had changed, all the things that he had done. Still, he knew he had to go back eventually.

Driving into the small town of Pierce he scanned the sidewalks for the local bar or diner, somewhere to chow down and ask about work. Pete soon realized that small town was right - one main drag with an old wooden courthouse and The Timber Inn being the largest buildings. The Inn it was, then. Parking the truck right in front of the battered door, he pulled on his jacket before heading inside. It was chilly enough to justify the coat, but it also served to cover the holster at his hip from prying eyes.

He glanced at the menu before pulling a stool up to the well-polished bar and ordering a cheeseburger with fries and a glass of coke. Didn't want to give the wrong impression by drinking beer when the working day wasn't quite over. He knew that everything about him was being observed, and would be reported on around town. It happened everywhere he went, he was used to it.

The bartender was cordial, asked what he was doing in Pierce, what he thought of it so far, the usual. Pete told him the truth - he was looking for work for a few weeks, he was headed home to family but after his discharge he wanted to see the country he'd been fighting for before settling down. This answer usually got him a nod of approval and a promise to ask around. The bartender frowned for a moment, deep in thought, before offering to put Pete in touch with the Widow Littlesea, who could use some help with the livestock before she sold up and moved back to her home state. She could sure use the help, if he was willing to work and keep his nose clean?

Pete agreed. He could use the cash and the Widow needed help. Sounded like a good deal.

He bunked in with a couple of loggers in the room over the bar that night. It was sparse, but clean, and he didn't need much else. The Army had fed and housed him better than 'home' had been able to, and that wasn't saying much. The Timber Inn was a step up from both. The loggers seemed like they wanted to start something, but one look at Pete with his shirt off was enough to quiet them down. Paunches and bravado stood no chance against lethal confidence. It was a good call.

Morning started with a decent breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits with plenty of good coffee, something Pete could not live without. The bartender, Mac, offered to take him out to the Littlesea homestead just out of town to meet the Widow. He offered this with a stern glare and an unspoken warning of violence if Pete took one step out of bounds with the widow or her property. Pete acknowledged the warning but smiled inside. He was more than capable of deadly violence and could take out Mac in a hot minute, but he appreciated the man's concern for his neighbor.

Pulling up in front of the homestead he frowned as he eyed the place. It was clear that the death of her husband had caused problems for Mrs Littlesea. Fences were broken, shingles were missing, and the porch steps looked about ready to collapse. There was plenty of work to be done if the family hoped to sell up and leave, but from the looks of it there may not be any spare cash to pay him for his work. Pete shrugged. He'd do what he could and move on, as always.

Mac called to the house and waited on the dirt yard for the owner to come out. Pete joined him, careful to stand just behind and to the side to avoid looking threatening to a woman on her own.

The Widow Littlesea was not what he was expecting. She stood tall and grave on her porch, regal even. Her hair was chopped short and uncombed, in the way of his people after a death, and her face bore the marks of self-inflicted clawing. Grief was expressed differently among the people, not like the Anglo rituals of refined mourning. Among the people it was a visceral reaction to loss, but once expressed it was over. There were no widow's weeds or public displays. It was their way to accept and move on.

She cast a cool gaze his way. No expression on her face, but she knew him. The people always knew each other. He, in return, held her gaze, shoulders straight and expression neutral. To do anything other would have been disrespectful. An Anglo thing. Mac was oblivious as he took off his hat and nodded to the woman.

"Mrs Littlesea, this here is Pete. He's looking for work and I told him you needed a hand, seein' as you're sellin' up and all. So, well, I hope that's alright with you that I brought him over?"

Pete noticed with some quiet amusement that the Widow struck Mac dumb. True, she was a good-looking woman, but he suspected it was more her stillness that threw the barman. She had no reaction whatsoever until he finished speaking.

She nodded, once, then asked the men to come inside. A short conversation and Pete was headed back to the Inn to collect his duffle and his truck. He would move into the small room off the kitchen for the next two weeks and fix the place up for bed, board and a few dollars. He was good with that.

The Widow had made up his bed by the time he returned, and fed him stew with cornbread. Few words were exchanged. He said he'd heard she had children. She told him they had gone on ahead, back to her home. Her daughter was a nurse and her son had just finished high school. They were better off with family. This town was not good for them, or for her. She said nothing more.

Pete turned in early. He aimed to be up at dawn to care for the livestock before starting on the repairs. He was surprised to find breakfast waiting for him, but no company. He shrugged. He understood needing to be alone.

The horses were fed and brushed, the bullocks checked and secure and the porch steps repaired by lunch. The fences were in need of a few days work, but the shingles would only take the afternoon. He made himself a sandwich and brought it and a glass of milk out onto the porch. The homestead was somewhat isolated, a couple miles outside what passed for town. It was on a hill above a river and surrounded by pasture and pines. Rocky outcroppings loomed here and there, casting long shadows in the autumn sun. Pete shivered. A goose across his grave or a cloud passing. Uneasy, all the same.

The week ended with a change in the weather. Thunderheads rolled in, riding a cold wind over the mountains. Pete didn't mind working in the rain, but he didn't care too much for being outside in lightning, that was just asking for Raven to get up to tricks.

Pete packed up his hammer and nails and headed back to the house, casting an eye over the cattle as he went. All were accounted for, but they seemed skittish. He put it down to the charge in the air and let them be. The old farm had no electricity, just oil lamps and wood fires. By the time he reached the door the rain had started to fall and the afternoon had turned dark. Mrs Littlesea had returned from wherever she usually spent her days but had not yet set a match to the wicks, leaving the kitchen gloomy. The wind picked up, rattling the screen door and sending another shiver down Pete's spine.

"Something's coming. Something bad. Last time we lost the Hancock family, all of them, and Mr Littlesea. Weather just like this, town was cut off. After the storm, they were gone. Mr Littlesea warned me years ago about Coyote and Thunderbird. When they fight, the people are caught in the middle and some don't come back." She turned and walked away from him.

Pete understood.

He stepped out onto the back porch and lit a Chesterfield, dropping the Zippo back into the special pocket in the front of his denim pants. While he smoked, Pete considered the best course of action. A cut and run never entered his mind. His choice, as he saw it, was to stay on the homestead with the woman, or head back to town and pass the worst of it at the Inn. He blew smoke through his nose and lifted the corner of his mouth. He was no quitter, never had been. If something bad was coming he'd stand his ground and face it head on. He'd faced more than enough already. If Heartbreak Ridge hadn't killed him, it was unlikely what was coming could finish him off; and if it did? Heh.

He stubbed out the cigarette on the heel of his boot and unrolled the paper, letting the last few flakes of tobacco go with the wind. He muttered a prayer with his offering, inclining his head to the storm before going back inside and latching the screen shut.

He pulled his .45 out of his holster and checked the magazine. It was clean and oiled and full, as always. He had a fleeting wish for his M1 carbine, but the Colt he'd liberated from his Lieutenant on Pork Chop Hill would take care of anyone who tried to come close. Small hole in the front, huge mess in the back. Or vice versa. He had no problem putting down a man whose back was turned. Only fools fought fair, the only heroes he'd ever seen got dead pretty quick.

The sky was black as pitch, the wind's keening had picked up and was whistling as it blew around the corners of the house and barn. Oddly enough it reminded Pete of his days on a fishing boat out of Port Angeles before he went to Korea. That almost-singing tone of wind in the wires on deck was echoed by the pines out back. If he were a superstitious man he would have said it boded ill for them both that night, but he'd long since left ghosts and ghouls behind. Instead he just knew that the horses would be fretting and it was time to check the stalls were shut tight.

Calling out to the woman that he was going to check the barn, Pete took the storm lantern from its hook beside the stove and lit it. Closing both the kitchen and screen doors behind him he made his way across the yard to the rickety shelter the barn provided. He could hear the two horses stamping and snorting as the wind groaned through the gaps in the siding. As he reached the door the thunder rolled over the valley, a long percussive growl he felt deep in his gut. Lightning forked almost immediately and the rain hit like bullets, ricocheting up from the dirt and soaking him in seconds. The storm lantern flickered but just managed to stay lit as he hurried inside. He tipped his hat back from his forehead, feeling the chill droplets slide down his neck.

He hung the lamp on a nail and moved to soothe the horses. They were huddled together in a corner of the largest stall, the bay having broken his rope and pushed in with the piebald. Pete frowned. Thunderstorms scared horses, sure, but they must be used to them, living up here. Their rolling eyes and sweat-soaked hides didn't seem right. More thunder called, another bolt of lightning cracked through the dark in the barn and he saw something in the far corner. Something white and red, just for a split second, before the light went. The horses knew it was there. Lips pulled back from teeth, high-pitched whinnying and more stomping hooves. Pete hurried to calm them before they both got loose and stampeded him.

A change in the wind stopped him mid-stride. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he caught a strange odor. He spun around, his hackles up and a growl coming from his throat. Gun in hand he stalked back to the barn entrance, finding nothing in the corner he had thought was occupied. The horses had calmed somewhat, but Pete was more and more agitated by the minute. Deep in his bones he knew the bad thing had come. He knew Q'wati had created him for just this moment. He alone could end it.

Pete dropped the gun onto a nearby barrel. Acting on an instinct he didn't recognize he pulled off his jacket and shirt before removing his boots and leaving them all in the barn. His training held firm. He stalked out into the night, the iron discipline his mind held over his body keeping the shaking to a manageable level. The electricity in the air was palpable. The thunder, lightning, howling wind and lashing rain the perfect backdrop for a confrontation such as this.

The back door flew open as Pete was halfway across the yard. The cold one - for Pete knew that was what it was - stood framed in the light of the kitchen lamps, the broken body of the Widow dangling from one hand. Her dead, black eyes gazed unseeing in his direction as the cold one licked his lips, scarlet trails dripping from his mouth onto his chin.

It took less than a minute before the giant wolf stood over the mangled remains of the killer.

Two full days before the wolf returned to the man.

A week before the man could leave town. Mac and the others mourned the Widow Littlesea and the tragic fire that had consumed the homestead. Lightning was a terrible thing, they said. At least she had joined her husband, they said. Wonder what happened to that stranger old Hoffmann had seen on the road just before the storm, they asked. Young man like that, shouldn't be out in all weather, maybe we'll find his body too, they said.

Pete just nodded and ummed and ahhed.

He was certain that young man would never be found. Nor would his girl, the one he'd pushed behind him when the wolf came out to play. The bag they'd dropped on the Widow's porch had belonged to a Mr Christiaan Meyer of Fort McDowell, Arizona, or Hicksville, Nowhere, if Pete recalled correctly.

After the funeral, Pete climbed into his truck and headed home. La Push and the people needed him. He vowed to himself never to tell the truth about what had happened in Pierce, but he knew he would tell all who would listen that the legends were true. His father had told him, and he had denied it. Old men's fancies had held no place in the modern world, he'd said.

Pete kept his word. He married the Widow Littlesea's daughter and had a family. He became one of the old men sitting around the bonfire, telling the tale of the cold ones and the protectors. He made sure his two sons and his daughter and his sons' best friends understood the legacy they carried and how to deal with it, if the time ever came.

The day came when Pete was called to Q'warti. His Julia had passed a year before and his son, Michael, in Vietnam. Harry Clearwater took his father's place on the council and sold his old red Chevy to his best friend, Billy Black.

Life went on, as is the way of the people.

AN: Sweenyanne read the first 1000 words and told me to finish it. Stephenie Meyer gave me the Clearwater family tree to play with, I just added a few little odds and ends (see The Official Illustrated Guide for the details).

I didn't get my beta to work her magic on this, so any and all mistakes are 100% mine.


End file.
